Gympie CEO's spending power could soar 350%

While a proposal to increase the limit for the council's CEO to enter into contracts has some merit, how much power should an unelected official get?

Gympie councillors are considering increasing the spending limit of CEO Bernard Smith this week, a move which looks have been made with terrible timing. Picture: Renee Albrecht

THEY say timing is necessary to good comedy.

It's also key to bad publicity.

Councillors have likely spent the past few hours or so fielding angry calls from ratepayers over the proposal to let the CEO sign off on $1 million contracts without having to put them before elected officials first.

And timing is the reason why.

The devils in the details on this one are stunning.

It certainly would prevent long delays in decision-making caused by the councillors only meeting every four or five weeks now.

Of course this is a self-inflicted wound - after all, long delays wouldn't be an issue if they met more frequently.

Long delays between meetings risks slowing down council decisions - but then, it was the council's decision to move to less-frequent meetings in the first place. Picture: Arthur Gorrie

Then there's the fact it would bring Gympie in line with other councils.

But who says following them is a good idea in the first place?

If Simon says "stick your head in the oven" I'd like to think we'd check the power was off first.

People are right to question the power given to unelected officials. It's not about the person in the seat now, but who could end up in it.

If a friend stuck his head in here, would you do the same? Picture: Brenda Strong GLA250713PIZA

And floating an almost five-fold increase in spending power in a climate where trust in council is failing?

As timing goes, that's terrible.

Warranted or not, the reality is there is a fair level of unrest, dissatisfaction and distrust even in Gympie.

And if anyone claims they did not see this, well, the good news is there's a Specsavers in town.